


She Stood Smiling on the Shoreline

by rainstormcolors



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:33:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27594866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainstormcolors/pseuds/rainstormcolors
Summary: Three years have passed since the time of Battle City and Seto Kaiba finds himself bothered by how Isis Ishtar didn't send a response to his company's invitation to a new card game tournament.
Relationships: Ishizu Ishtar/Kaiba Seto
Comments: 30
Kudos: 30
Collections: Yu-Gi-Oh! It's Time to G-G-G-Gift! [Mini-Exchange]





	She Stood Smiling on the Shoreline

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hakaibunshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakaibunshi/gifts).



> I worry I may have drifted a little bit from the tone asked for in the prompt, but I hope this is still some Trustshipping that can be enjoyed. Thank you for inspiring me with your prompts, Mugen, and for sparking this story from me.

They’d stood across from each other under starlight on the top of the blimp. He’d won his duel against her but somehow she stood in peace within the dust and stars of her defeat. His victory had cleared something for the both of them. She smiled to him then.

Now her face had shifted into something heavier, the blue of her eyes becoming dark like deep water, as they stood together within the hollowed trunk of Alcatraz’s tower, the walls encrusted with the tower’s metal intestines. Everything in her face was suddenly fragile and there was ivory-colored cloth cloaking her black hair. And he had felt something deep echo within his chest. He understood the feeling cupped within her eyes, held inside her heart, held inside his own cold heart.

And he did not want that fate for her. He did not want Isis Ishtar to die.

Time moved on. He gained things. He lost someone. Mokuba drank orange juice and coffee with him in the mornings before work. The sky held between tree branches and electric lines and skyscrapers would smolder indigo on the drives to work. His corporation was the nucleus of the city.

There was something soothing about composing data and crafting blueprints in the quiet laboratories of Kaiba Corporation’s headquarters, the floors shined to a crystalline gloss and everything tinted in marine. He could use his hands and eyes to shape light into new worlds here if he wanted to. He focused on this and only this. He did this until he no longer felt violent waves crashing against the thin dam encircling his heart.

And only then, three years after Battle City, did Kaiba Corporation hold another grand card game tournament to crown a glorious and bright new King of Games. But Seto Kaiba himself wasn’t ready to play again yet.

Yugi Mutou accepted his invitation. “You look well, Kaiba-kun,” he said kindly.

Seto responded with a quiet and softer, “Hmph,” avoiding eye contact.

Yugi paused. “I miss him too,” Yugi said.

Seto didn’t respond at all.

Katsuya Jonouchi also accepted his invitation. “You broke down and actually invited me, huh? Couldn’t deny my talent anymore?” Jonouchi said with an obnoxious grin and Seto sneered. “Don’t be such a hardass,” Jonouchi said as Seto left without comment.

Mai Kujaku accepted his invitation. She never spoke to him.

The Ishtars had thrown everything into chaos at Battle City, but all three of them had made their way into the semi-finals or beyond and so Kaiba Corporation had sent out invitations to the three of them as well. There were no responses.

Seto understood by the morning of the tournament, spring light spilling over the streets and crowds pooling, that Isis Ishtar was not going to answer that invitation. The thought itched inside his mind throughout the day of overseeing battles. Yugi Mutou won the tournament. Seto wasn’t sure what he felt.

One month ticked by. The annual game exposition hosted by Kaiba Corporation was held in August, two months further away. This year a new household gaming system would premiere. Seto himself had overseen components of its development and like every year he’d perform on stage to an audience, presenting blazing holograms with blazing words. And there was something about it that uncaged Seto’s heart. Somehow he felt like he was unburied whenever he shouted dreams to an audience of strangers who for some reason were listening to him.

There were two months left. The exposition invited special guests every year, their travel and hotel stays paid for, usually determined by other people at Kaiba Corporation. But an impulse drifted to Seto and he sent a request to his secretary: “Invite Isis Ishtar to this year’s exposition.” It was short notice but there were two months left.

And two weeks passed.

Seto emailed his secretary---for he wouldn’t ask this aloud: “Has Isis sent any response to our invitation?”

“I apologize but we haven’t received a response.”

“Resend the invite.”

Two days of late June passed before the secretary responded again. “Ishtar-san has responded and apologizes but she won’t be able to make the exposition.”

Seto thumped his fingers on the glass top of his desk as the holographic print floated before his eyes. He’d been working late. His office was a cube of glass and florescent light and beyond it was evening sky and city glitter. He paused longer than he could explain before blinking away the message.

As Seto was chauffeured towards home in a black car, he thought of next year’s Golden Week, of a possible next year’s card game tournament. It wouldn’t be bad press for Kaiba Corporation to host a large annual card game tournament in the city. His board had thrown the idea to him before and they’d seemed confused when he shot the idea down. He agreed to a tournament this year for some reason though. Outside the car’s windows, one half of sky held clouds blue against softer blue, and the other half of sky was honeyed air.

There was some festering itch coiling inside his brain. The car was brought to the front of Kaiba manor with its square hedges and stone dragons and Seto ripped open his car door and slammed it hard behind him, felt fire blood moving through him. This year’s tournament had been a waste. Battle City had been a waste. None of it had meant a damn thing.

Inside Mokuba was playing a handheld game made of plastic and circuits and not Kaiba Corporation holograms. He held up a peace sign as his brother charged past him towards the home office.

“Where do you get off asking me to host Battle City for you and then your family mucks up the whole thing and you can’t even be bothered to respond to this year’s tournament’s invite?” Seto spilled out the message into the holographic interface and pressed send using his eyes and synapses.

And now Seto Kaiba told himself he wouldn’t think about this anymore. He wouldn’t think about the people he didn’t want to die, about the people he didn’t want to leave him.

The technology of a cellphone felt quaint and primitive in his hands as he gazed at his phone’s screen as he was chauffeured towards work the next morning.

“I apologize for upsetting you. I have my duties elsewhere and can’t make your corporation’s events. But thank you for inviting me. Sincerely, Isis Ishtar.”

There was some kind of gravity in Seto’s chest.

It was a plain message. There was no search for any further response from him. Why did he want to respond? It was disgusting.

The days moved by. He crafted blueprints (which he enjoyed) and attended meetings (which were dull) and he swam laps in his swimming pool because it felt less neurotic than pacing and sometimes Mokuba would take him out for dinner.

He didn’t know why he felt exhausted.

For Mokuba’s birthday, the restaurant had potted butterfly palm trees and there were aquariums set into the walls filled with blue and orange cichlids. Mokuba ordered a chocolate milkshake. Seto handed him a small package wrapped in snow-blue paper and a larger flat package wrapped in glossy silver. Mokuba tore open to larger package first to find an autographed penciled sketch by a favorite comic book artist and Mokuba smiled brightly.

“Did you commission this yourself or was it something already for sale?” Mokuba asked.

“I bought it at a gallery back in March.”

“Yeah. I can’t imagine you ordering a drawing like this. But it’s great. Thanks,” Mokuba said peering at the graphite woman in combat boots wielding a club, a flower in her hair, her lips in a pout, some fantasy animal with bat wings posed behind her.

The smaller package revealed a sleek black watch with a wooden face behind its hands and Roman numerals. Mokuba wasn’t as excited for it.

It made Seto angry how Isis’ message hadn’t offered any invite for him to respond. It made him angry how he wanted to respond. ( _She ended it with “Sincerely”!?_ )

He stared at the message on his phone as he was driven to work one morning. He should have deleted it. He wanted to delete it. Instead he typed with his fingers, quaint and primitive, “If I throw a tournament next year would you attend?”

It hadn’t taken long for her to answer. It was only the drive home that same day:

“Do you need something from me?”

It was like he’d swallowed a stone.

 _Shit. Shit. Shit._ He’d really just invited Isis to Japan _four_ damn times. What the hell was wrong with him. Pathetic! Begging like a child. Pathetic! He shoved his phone back into his black pant pocket, clinched his fists which he slammed hard once against his thighs, stained with energy he didn’t know what to do with. He forbid himself from answering Isis’ message.

It was raining in the city six days later. The sky was tumbled silver and cobalt and watery ribbons fell like roots across the car’s windows on the drive home. Seto’s long steel-blue coat was spotted with water drops at the shoulders as he checked his phone.

“Here are some photos of the Red Sea coast. I took these in Dahab last year.” Isis had attached four rectangles of photography. Inside the first, the water was jeweled aquamarine under blue atmosphere. The next photograph had crests of red mountains and the water held the shattered light of tangerine sunset. The final two photographs had been taken underwater and Seto wondered if Isis had taken them herself.

_I took these in Dahab last year._

Underwater and as if within a prism: the splash of citrus- and orchid-colored fish.

What sort of nonsense was this? Showing off some vacation? Seto typed: “I see you have more important duties which are apparently just tourism. Unless these are stock photos since I don’t see you.” He pressed send. He immediately regretted pressing send.

The next message arrived two days later as Seto peered at his phone on his lunch break, alone in his glass office above Domino City. The morning had been a string of tiring meetings filled with boring people. Isis had attached a photograph of herself standing on the blue shore. Her eyes were vivid like the sea and her smile was gentle. The moon-white of her dress cast a faint halo. “Malik asked I take a photo of myself to send to him at the time. I asked someone on the beach to take it.”

Seto tried to recall if Mokuba had taken any photographs of him.

He remembered Mokuba had at the opening of Kaiba Land America, after Seto had stepped off the Blue Eyes White Dragon Roller Coaster. He’d had his hand in his hair, trying to neaten the sway of his bangs. And Mokuba had taken another one that day as Seto was eating a pita sandwich, bright rainbow balloons tied to the stand behind him.

The smile on Isis’ face in the photograph seemed sincere. She was elegant.

Seto typed out, “I don’t care about your photography,” but then he backspaced the message. He softly inhaled, felt the breath held inside his lungs.

Seto typed out and sent: “I’m sure you enjoyed yourself but why do you think I care about your photography?”

At the end of the work day, Seto met with Mokuba in the backseat of the black car to be driven home.

“Kouga was a real pain to work with today. I hate how he treats me like a kid,” Mokuba groaned, the city moving behind him in the car’s windows.

Mokuba had grown taller since the time of Battle City. His hair was shorter. It wasn’t routine that he came to headquarters but today he wore a crisp cream-hued suit. His face was young. Mokuba was a tiny bit older than the age Seto had been when he’d wrested control of Kaiba Corporation from their father. Just a tiny bit older than the age Seto had been when everything was spilling.

“Like a kid…” Seto muttered.

“Hm?” Mokuba hmmed.

“Nothing.”

“The trip was refreshing. Malik and Rishid are always traveling and I needed a break.” Seto read Isis’ new message at home as he sat in his home office, the walls pearly white, a potted fern and three petite marble dragons arranged neatly on the slender glass-top table behind him. The sky in the window was bleached turquoise.

“You’re not chasing your brother around anymore? At least you’ve sorted that out.” The message was sent from his holographic monitor.

The messages between them dripped through the days.

Isis sent: “Malik’s always had wanderlust. He loves seeing the world. He still travels with Rishid but we keep in touch now. I thought I’d try enjoying some of the world as well.”

Seto typed out and then deleted, “Japan is part of the world.” Instead he typed out and sent from his phone: “Is there a reason you’re sharing this with me?”

A full day passed.

Isis sent: “You seemed to want attention.”

Seto flinched as he read the message on the drive to work. His brows creased hard and he typed the words fast. “Franky I think you’re the one who wants attention showing off photography I didn’t ask for.”

Isis responded with more photography. They were photographs of Paris, of a small café with brick floor and of colorful artwork in the Louvre Museum. “I was sent to Paris for work a few years ago as well. I don’t have pictures of myself for this trip.”

Seto pondered the message as he was driven home. Inside his home office, he searched through his image files to find the two buried photographs Mokuba had taken of him two years ago. With his eyes he wrote the holographic words: “These were taken at the grand opening of Kaiba Land America.” He attached the two images and he used his synapses to press send.

Isis sent: “Thank you for sharing your photos. You seem young in them.”

Seto, not entirely sure what Isis’ tone was, sent from his phone: “Mokuba took them a few years ago.”

And the messages between them dripped through the days.

Seto drank black coffee in the mornings. Seto oversaw a virtual game tournament. Mokuba invited him for a walk in the park. There was a thunderstorm. Seto fought the urge to slam a door. He watched live-feed of duels from Osaka.

Isis sent: “I worry about Malik. I forget to worry about myself.”

Seto sent from his phone: “I remember that about you.”

Isis sent: “It’s habit. But a lot has changed from before. We talk on the phone now and send each other messages.”

Seto wasn’t sure how to respond. There were memories he didn’t want to think about, that he wanted to erase. A lot had changed for him as well.

There were still the days when Seto imagined flinging himself out the window of his headquarters office. All that’d be left of him would be jelly.

Kaiba Corporation’s annual game exposition arrived. The vast room was dark save for the globe of light encircling him. He wore his long metallic-white coat. The audience cheered for Seto’s words and his sparkling creations which flared around him and somehow Seto’s heart felt more like light than tar in these moments. A brief moment in the dark of sparkling light and air.

Mokuba invited Seto to the beach. Fractals of silver reflection bobbed on the water like flower petals. Seto pulled his phone from his black pant pocket and he took a photograph of Mokuba as he walked ankle-deep along the cerulean shoreline, his face gentle and looking towards ocean. And then another photograph as Mokuba noticed Seto, and Mokuba smiled for this one.

Isis sent: “There was a joke image of you circling around online I saw where your coat was incredibly massive. A big cube of a coat.”

Seto sent from his phone: “There are always parodies of myself and my company out there.”

Isis sent: “I thought it was cute. But I suppose there’s meaner parodies out there.”

Seto sent from his phone: “Send me the image.”

Isis did. It was a tampered photograph. His metallic-white coat had massive spines and a massive tail and his tiny head didn’t even reach the top of his coat’s collar.

Seto sent from his phone: “This one’s fine.”

Isis sent: “Do the parodies bother you?”

Seto sent from his phone: “There’s not much to do about it. You shrug it off. Mokuba sends the “cuter” ones to me sometimes. One like you just sent can be good advertising. It means my portrayal works. It’s striking in the mind of the public.”

The days were growing shorter. The tree leaves stained themselves with amber and sunset.

Kaiba Corporation’s board again proposed throwing a card game tournament in Domino City during Golden Week. Like the year prior, Seto did not fight it. He didn’t have it in him to fight it.

Mokuba met with him in the backseat of the black car but Seto didn’t feel like talking or listening.

Inside the quiet space of his bedroom, nestled in velvet lamp light, Seto opened a drawer and found his card deck. His eyes swept over the cards within his hands and he felt numb. It wasn’t that he never touched his cards. He’d find himself running strategies inside his head. He minded the duels he watched. But he felt numb.

He took an extra sleeping pill that night. He wanted to not think. And he didn’t want dreams.

Isis sent: “I’m tired today.”

Seto sent from his home office: “I’ve also been tired.”

Isis sent: “Is there any reason for you?”

Seto sent from his home office: “Not really.”

Isis sent: “I dissolved the Tomb Guardians a few years ago but a certain family keeps trying to remain in my orbit. Right now I’m tired of them.”

Seto sent from his home office: “People are tiring.”

Isis sent: “They can be. Malik offered to scare them off but that’s a bit drastic.”

Seto sent: “You’re being too kind.”

Isis sent: “I miss knowing what to do sometimes.”

Seto sent: “What do you mean?”

Isis sent: “I wish I didn’t feel like everything’s my fault. I miss when it felt like it wasn’t my fault. I miss having a clear line to walk sometimes. I miss when everything was just part of the line.”

Seto sent: “Life is hard.”

Isis sent: “I’m tired of not knowing what to do. I hate feeling like it’s my fault.”

Seto sent: “It’s not your fault.”

Isis sent: “You don’t know that.”

Seto sent: “Maybe not but I know what true fault looks like. You’re talking about that necklace aren’t you? You also shouldn’t have followed that “clear line.””

Isis sent: “You’ve contradicted yourself. It’s not my fault but I should not have done what I did?”

Seto sent: “Then it’s not all your fault. Maybe you screwed up but a lot of other people also screwed up.”

Isis sent: “My guilt matters.”

Seto sent: “It does.”

Isis sent: “It’s hard sometimes.”

Seto sent: “It is.”

Through the mail, on social media, in paper and ink and pixels, came drawings and birthday wishes to Seto Kaiba. Some of the wishes had crossed the ocean to reach him. There was a vast board set along the hallway across from Seto’s office at headquarters and the mailed-in cards and artwork were carefully displayed as they arrived. Some cards featured his beloved dragons. Some cards featured make-believe Duel Monsters. Each year Mokuba selected two or more of the unique Duel Monsters crafted as birthday gifts to pass along to Industrial Illusions for consideration. And somehow Seto’s heart felt more like light than tar when he gazed across the board.

Yugi Mutou had sent a private message to Seto: “Happy Birthday Kaiba-kun! Hope it’s a good one!” Yugi sent a birthday message to Seto every year. More so than past years, Seto felt tempted to respond this time.

There was soft rain for his birthday, the foamy glow of clouds and the scent of raindrops brushing the world. Seto preferred to stay at home after work’s end.

“Happy birthday, Nii-sama,” Mokuba smiled as the maid brought out a small round cake decorated in white as Seto sat in the kitchen’s enclave with a glass of sparkling cranberry juice. The cake was more for Mokuba than for him. But watching Mokuba enjoy the taste of cake was maybe a kind of gift itself.

Isis sent: “Happy birthday Seto.”

There were water drops on the window. The shadows were cool and soft-edged as the holographic monitor spun its glow inside his home office.

Seto sent: “It’s not much of a secret.”

Isis sent: “You’re 21?”

Seto sent: “Correct.”

Isis sent: “I hope your day went well.”

Seto sent: “Mokuba had a cake made for me. It was chocolate. Mokuba likes chocolate.”

Isis sent: “That’s nice.”

A few moments passed. And then Isis sent: “I received an invitation to Kaiba Corporation’s card game tournament in Domino next year.”

And it had been in the back of Seto’s mind that she would be invited again. The company had invited her last year. He could’ve requested they not repeat the gesture but he hadn’t interfered.

But he didn’t know what to type right now.

Isis sent: “I’m sorry. I don’t do tournaments anymore.”

Seto felt something small tear. It was something that felt like it’d been torn open over and over again. It was never going to heal.

Seto sent: “Did Battle City mean anything?”

A moment passed.

Isis sent: “Battle City meant everything.”

Seto sent: “What was it like watching the other Yugi leave?”

A few more moments passed. Seto kneaded his fingers as they rested on the desk, pinching his lips.

Isis sent: “I’m sorry you lost him.”

Seto: “What was it like watching the other Yugi leave?”

Isis: “It was a weight off my chest.”

The message floated above the desk. Seto didn’t respond to it. Instead he stood up slowly and walked out of the room.

Seto doubled his sleeping pill dose that night as well and felt his body become gently heavy and felt his soul sink into the soft emptiness of dreamless sleep.

In the morning Mokuba drank orange juice and Seto drank black coffee. There was still too much sleep melt inside them for talking now but Mokuba took bites of toast smeared with peanut butter and dusted in cinnamon. Mokuba wore his cream suit. As the brothers stepped outside, dark blue clouds on the horizon were edged in pink incandescence and sunset-colored leaves speckled the drive.

Seto had his lunch break in his office. The sky was a silver lantern now. As Seto sipped canned espresso he checked the messages on his phone.

Last night Isis had sent: “I can’t lie to you. But I’m sorry you lost your friend.”

And Isis sent after that: “Battle City changed the direction of my life. It saved Malik. It saved our family.”

And Isis sent after that: “I hope you enjoy the rest of your birthday.”

And Isis sent after that: “TBH thank you so much for being here.”

Seto rolled his eyes and typed out: “It’s not like I’m not going to respond to you ever again. Just give me a day.”

They exchanged messages on and on. Isis liked Ingmar Bergman films and she liked Pablo Neruda’s poetry. She liked Italian wedding cake and she liked lots of cream in her coffee and she bought too many coffee table books filled with artwork and photography.

There were business parties Seto needed to attend. Seto despised the business parties. Everything was fake there.

There was a day where his eyes lingered on the knives in the kitchen and his wrists felt hot. He didn’t fight his urge to slam a door.

But Mokuba invited Seto to come along with him to see Christmas lights in the city. Seto wore a long grey coat over black and Mokuba bundled himself in a red and white parka. The lights dazzled silvery and gold in the trees lining the street and there were Christmas trees in shop windows. The city glittered and moved under the black sky. 

“Come on, you can smile,” Mokuba said as he lifted his phone and took a sudden photograph of Seto, street and people and starry trees beyond him. Seto hadn’t been smiling but he’d felt peaceful. Seto sent that photograph to Isis. And Seto sent Isis the two photographs he’d taken of Mokuba on the shoreline in summer.

It felt warm to see the photograph of Mokuba on the shore smiling. It felt warm to see the photograph of Isis on the shore smiling.

He watched footage of duels from America.

Jewels of ice crested the world. Late January was luminous and grey in the window of Seto’s home office.

Isis sent: “Will you duel at your tournament?”

Seto sent: “Probably not.”

Isis sent: “Do you enjoy dueling?”

Seto sent: “I did.”

Isis: “Malik and I used to duel when we were younger. I miss it sometimes.”

Seto: “I miss it too.”

A moment passed.

Isis: “Could I visit Domino on your company’s invite even if I don’t participate in the tournament?”

Seto: “Yes. That’s fine.”

It was spring. The world was green and sapphire blue. The tournament would be in two days.

Seto met Isis Ishtar at the airport. She wore a black dress with copper trim along the cuffs and neckline and there was a white sash was tied around her waist. Isis’ eyes were vivid like the sea just as he remembered.

“Hello, Seto,” she said. It was the first time he’d heard her voice in four years. “I’ll try enjoying Domino for myself this time,” she said.

Seto felt his heartbeat rattling. This was too real. He was going to screw this up.

“Malik and Rishid are in London right now. I forget if I mentioned it. They’ve been there a few weeks already.” And Seto could hear her voice and see her face as she expressed the words. He watched her lips move, her eyes blink as they peered out the car window as she sat beside him. Her hands rested in her lap. “Malik wished me luck at the tournament even though I won’t be participating.” She turned her sea-hued eyes to him. “I did bring my deck to duel you specifically if you’d like a rematch.”

“I’m not as out-of-practice as you think. I’ve kept my deck updated,” Seto said.

“It’s not about who will win anymore, Seto.”

Isis was inside his home. She was waiting for him inside the second story study. And as Seto prepared his deck in his bedroom he felt something quietly shattering. He swallowed a gulp of air.

White and grey oil paintings hung on the study’s pale blue walls. Walking into the room, he found Isis sitting at the small table set at its core. She was beautiful and it hurt. He sat across from her and she was peering at him.

He had to look away and he mumbled, “The last time… I let myself feel something when dueling someone…”

Isis stood and Seto turned to her as she walked over to his side.

She bent down to his face, lifted a hand to brush his cheek to see if he’d pull back from her touch. He didn’t. Her eyes seemed calm. She whispered, “I’m scared too,” and she softly pressed her lips to his lips before returning to her seat.


End file.
